Page 12 of Captive Hearts
Ashley sighed. They were potentially teetering on the edge of something quite special. But she needed a real op to do it right. If push came to shove, Ashley could shoot stuff on her iPhone. But she’d much rather have everything captured by a professional, in a decent format. This needed to look good on TV. ‘Gina, can I count on you?’
‘How do you mean?’ Gina asked with a small eyebrow raise.
‘I mean, are you gonna stick with me here? Can I rely on you not to run off if things get a bit… tricky?’
‘Tricky? Whatever’s going on here is way beyond tricky. That guy has hostages from the sounds of it. Which means he’s armed because if he was just a really angry bloke whose only weapon was his fists, it wouldn’t have brought out this response.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Ashley agreed, before arguing, ‘But we’re out on the street, so we’re not in the line of fire. If therearegoing to be bullets flying.’
‘Bullets go quite far though, from what I gather,’ Gina said easily.
Ashley nodded. ‘Fair point. But I really… I need you here,’ she admitted. ‘If I’m gonna get everything. The potential rewards here, I think they could be big.’
‘You know I don’t really do this sort of thing, don’t you? I don’t care about getting some big story,’ Gina told her plainly.
Ashley considered that. ‘Look. You work in movies, right?’
Gina nodded.
‘Well, let me tell you something. If we get real action here, it will be the most exciting thing you’ve ever committed to tape,’ Ashley told Gina.
‘I don’t know about that. Last project I did, I shot a guy wrestling with a crocodile,’ Gina told her.
Ashley shook her head. ‘But it was fake. What we might get today will be the real deal. If some guy comes out of that restaurant with a gun to, I don’t know, a pregnant woman’s head…’
‘Jesus, could you have painted a slightly less dramatic picture?’ Gina muttered.
Ashley paid her no heed, continuing her argument. ‘…There won’t be any rehearsals, no script. It’s real life, and you’ll get one chance to shoot it right. I can’t think of any movie take that could possibly compare.’
Gina went quiet. Ashley watched her, not knowing which way she was going to go. Gina was an utterly unknown quantity.
Eventually, her verdict came. ‘OK, that does soundslightlyinteresting,’ Gina said. ‘Maybe we could stick around for a bit. See what happens. One proviso, though.’
